When Bakhtawar Mirjat ‘15 took on the position of Secretary-General for LT’s first independent Model United Nations conference this February, she knew the responsibility she was taking on. After a tense separation of St. Ignatius College Prep and LT’s conference, the pressure is on Mirjat and LT to maintain the high standards expected from independent conferences.

The newly renamed LYMUN (Lyons Model UN) from SILTMUN (St. Ignatius Lyons Township Model UN) ends four consecutive years of joint conferences between the schools, Mirjat said. Thirteen experienced students, “chairs,” are each in charge of a committee of the conference; four additional students (including Mirjat) work to run the conference as a whole. The majority of planning work is done by the students.

LT’s performance in the conference will not suffer from the absence of students running the conference. Unlike the multi-day conferences, LYMUN is intended to develop teams, educate newcomers, and allow immersive practice for the year’s later, more important conferences like Model UN Illinois (MUNI) at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.

Delegate Colin Kubacki ‘17 is one of many underclassmen looking to hone his skills at the conference, and remains confident in LT’s strength as a delegation.

“With the strength that we have in this year’s freshmen and attending upperclassmen,” Kubacki said, “I’m sure that that our delegates will be able to hold their own within committees.”

LYMUN will cement LT’s newfound position as a Model UN powerhouse, being one of the few high schools nationwide to independently host a conference. Multi-day conferences of comparable size are hosted at Northwestern University and University of Chicago.

The conference is to be held on Feb. 28, and will occupy the South Campus PAC and classrooms for the entirety of the Saturday. Given the identical setting to last year’s SILTMUN, Kubacki predicts minimal changes despite the new management.

“The only difference is that our committees will be able to operate more independently and take more risks,” Kubacki said. “We also hope that changing the size of some committees will encourage aspects not normally seen in these conferences.”

Sponsors John Cronfel and Andrew Johannes have overseen the team for 8 and 2 years respectively, the former founding the group at LT. They are both responsible for ensuring the progress and success of LT’s delegation.

“It’s mostly the students, the supervisors are just there to make sure everything’s on track and things are turned in or sent out on time,” Mirjat said.

A critical deadline is issuing background papers to participating schools, Johannes said. Two papers from each committee inform the participating schools about the topics they will be debating, and are the basis of research for participants. After those are issued, the rest of the preparation is just communication with participating teams and planning the use of the school. Mirjat expects the papers to be issued early November.

“Judging by the past, they’ve done very well preparing,” Johannes said. “I’m confident they can handle it and run it smoothly.”